Full-time: Inter 1-1 Milan

That's all she wrote. Nothing more to report from the final few minutes though Inter had a decent effort or two to take all three points. Ho hum. Thanks for all your emails and tweets and apologies if I didn't get around to using yours. I'm off to bed now. Night, night.

88 mins "Good old Milan and their inability to take more than 1 in 12 chances," says Susy Campanale. She has a point. Zapata takes a yellow for a tackle and Massimiliano "Max" Allegri takes Muntari off for Ambrosini.

85 mins The first corner of the second half goes to Milan. It is sent over and cleared as far as El Shaarawy on the edge of the box. He tries to do something spectacular but his effort is blocked and the danger is cleared. That's the last action El Shaarawy will see as he has been hooked for Bojan.

82 mins There is little of note to be telling you about on the pitch. There is a lot of toing and froing in the middle of the park and the odd effort here and there but nothing worth getting your fingers all in a tizzy over as each time keep on cancelling each other out.

80 mins Just remembered that Milan have Bojan on the bench. What ever happened to Bojan? Wasn't he going to be the best thing since the invention of the wheel? Speaking of Milan subs, Niang Traoré is on, Boateng is off.

76 mins Ian Smith has been in touch about his favourite goal celebration. I'll let him tell you all about it. "Justin Fashanu. Norwich v Liverpool. He just scored the goal of the season bows his head half raises his arm and points a single finger into the air..one of the best goals ever and a great/modest celebration."

Goal! Inter 1-1 Milan (Schelotto)

71 mins Within three minutes of his derby debut, the sub has made a real difference. A great cross into the box finds the darting run of the winger and, after Mexes mistimes his jump, Schelotto heads it past Abbiati with ease from about 8 yards out. Stats time. Schelotto's goal is the 13th headed goal conceded by AC Milan in Serie A – a league-high.

65 mins The camera has panned to Stramaccioni on the line. He looks like he has borrowed the suit from his dad, who is just slightly bigger than him in the shoulders. Back on the pitch, a great cross into the box from Nocerino down the right has Handanovic sprawling to save it and hurting himself in the process. But he's A-OK folks.

61 mins Balotelli has won a free-kick for his side in between the box and the throw-in line but there did not seem to be any contact. How and ever, a free-kick it is to Milan and a free-kick it is wasted to Milan.

59 mins Paolo Bandini knows more about the football in Italy than almost anyone else in this entire universe so let's have a read of his thoughts on the Inter manager: "I was impressed with Stramaccioni when he first took job. But needs to start showing he knows how to react/change team in games like this." True that.

56 mins Ryan Dunne has a clue as to how Zanetti keeps those looks. "I can vaguely recall an interview with Zanetti where he revealed that he only uses water in his hair, and he doesn't let anyone (not even his wife!) touch it." Here I was thinking he made a deal at the crossroads.

54 mins "Zanetti stays young by voting for Berlusconi," honks Brendan Chapman. Finally, Inter get their fingers out and do something good. Some nice movement and play sees Cassano, I think (I am blaming the smoke/fog if it isn't him) in on Abbiati, who then pulls off a great save to deny the striker a goal. Milan losing their way a bit here.

47 mins A job lot of smoke has come across the screen giving the game a Dickensian feel. Milan have a free-kick out wide between the box and the line. It is whipped in by Montolivo and Boateng does his diving header impression with the result going this far wide of the post.

45 mins Right, we're back. Wait. I can't hear the commentary. Oh. It would help if I turned up the sound, wouldn't it? It's been a long-ass day. Anyway the football. If the second half is anything like the first, Inter will need some massive improvements all around the pitch. We started the first half with a question so we will start the second with one too. How does Zanetti stay so young looking?

41 mins Hangbags alert! Montolivo is none too happy with Cambiasso – after a nothing challenge – and he is letting him know all about it. The ref and some players get between them and it is all calmed down soon enough. Juan Jesus has picked up the game's fourth yellow by the way.

40 mins Milan get another free-kick in a promising position, although it is further out than the previous one. Balotelli lines it up, eyes it up and then hits it for home. It dips, it swerves, it is saved by Handanovic.

38 mins Mark Swinhoe likes "pure emotion" when players bulge the onion bag. Don't believe me? Well read his email then. "In my book, the best goal celebrations are the ones which show pure emotion - the two best ones being Tardelli going mental in '82 and Bergkamp putting his hands to his face in disbelief at what he'd just done after scoring that goal against Argentina in France 98."

33 mins Milan are walking the ball down Inter's left-hand side. Andrea Stramaccioni is going to have do something about that, if not now then sooner because if he doesn't Milan will walk away with all three points. This hasn't been a bad-tempered match but Ranocchia is the third person to get a yellow after he fouled Balotelli.

31 mins We are back to the subject of goal celebrations. Here's Simon McMahon thoughts on it all. "A well aimed sshhhh is a wonderful thing but the Bebeto / Romario / Mazinho baby celebration at USA 94 sticks in my mind as being quite spontaneous and joyful, unlike most of the dog cocking its leg / fish being caught guff that has taken over in recent years. You still can't be the hand in the air, fingers grabbing sleeve Denis Law classic, mind." Another Milan player, Muntari, has gone into the yellow book for an industrial challenge on Gargano.

26 mins My colleague Daniel Harris has sent me a video for y'all. He says El Shaarawy's goal was a little like this one from Crespo. Oh wow! It was almost 2-0 to Milan. A corner for them is met by the head of Balotelli and Handanovic is forced into to pulling off a great save.

24 mins Here is James Horncastle's say on the goalscoreer: "23rd goal of the season for El Shaarawy, I think, if you take into account his Italy and Under-21 goals too. Great season." And it was almost number 24 but Ranocchia put in a great challenge when El Shaarawy was about to shoot for home.

Goal! Inter 0-1 Milan (El Shaarawy)

21 mins: Milan won the ball in midfield from Cassano and with the Inter defence napping like an old man in a nursing home, Boateng decided to slip the most delicious of passes through to El Shaarawy. The striker controls the ball with the outside of his boot and then hammers it home with the same side of his foot. A truly, beautiful goal.

19 mins Inter's era of pressure seems to have ended for now and Milan are starting to come into the game a whole lot more now. J.R. in Illinois has this to ask. "Our announcer here, Ray Hudson, has just informed me that the players are carrying machetes in their jockstraps. How he could have that sort of information when he is announcing the game from a room in Florida or something is beyond me. Is there any way you can confirm this?" I'm afraid I can't.

12 mins The first yellow card of the match, and his 13th of the season, goes to Mexes. Cassano turned him, made him look silly, so he chopped him down, Ron-Harris style. The resulting free-kick for Inter comes to nothing. It is probably worth noting, that just before that Mexes denied Palacio a look on goal with a very good tackle. The two sides of Mexes.

10 mins Inter doing some some decent pressure and passing here but yet to really trouble Abbiati in the Milan net. Sinisa Milatovic, for one, was unimpressed with Arshavin's celebrations. "It was rather lame, actually: he would indiscriminately 'shush' people by putting his finger to his lips - even after scoring at home. So he was actually shutting up his own fans, who had just cheered for him after he scored."

5 mins Sebastian Fjeldstad has an answer to my Stella question and he accompanies that answer with his own question. "One would assume that she switches to english so the english audience can understand her, seeing as it is an ad, broadcasted in England. Now riddle me this; a man walks into a bar, orders a seagull, takes a bite then shoots himself. How come?" There have now been shots for either side. Cassano has Inter's, Boateng had Milan's. Neither are really worth talking about.

3 mins Gah! We are having one or two technical glitches here. Bear with us. I am using the age-old method of crossing my fingers and hoping it all goes well. Nothing to report from from the football as of yet.

1 min Here we go. And here is Ryan Dunne. "Big Amen to your hatred of non-celebrations, but wouldn't it be superb if a player pretended he was doing the non-celebration and then gave it the full fist-pumping GIRFUY!?" Yes, yes it would. Personally my favourite celebration is the finger to the lips. You can't beat it. You just can't beat it. Here's Raúl doing just that after the dinkiest of dinks. Arshavin used to do a good one too.

Hellllloooooooooooo

Anyone out there? Can you answer this question for me. In that Stella ad with all the farmers, the woman at the end, the one who interrupts Mr Cantona from talking, does her interrupting in French but then switches to English to continue the conversation? Why is that?

Celebration talk

Breath a sigh of relief, Balotelli has decided, and publicly declared, that he won't be doing any of that silly oh-I-can't-celebrate-when-I-score-because-boo-hoo-I-used-to-play-for-that-club business. Thank the Lord for that. Is it very silly isn't it? We can all agree on that, can't we?

Cake talk

Earlier today, during the Manchester City v Chelsea game, a large, if not very large, cake arrived at the desk. I didn't have time to snap it in all its glory before all and sundry here their greedy mits on it but my colleague Barry Glendenning did. Here's what it looked like in case you were wondering. Can you spot the typo?

OK, so it's not Sunday morning anymore ...

The evening's first email is in ...

... and it comes from the fingers of Brendan Herron who want to talk hair. "No one can say for sure how Milan will fare on the pitch in this affair or in the second leg of the champions league against Barca," he begins, before getting on to the subject at hand. "But one things for sure: they've already got the Hairstyle Champions League locked up. I'd like imagine Rodrigo Palacio will walk out today and see the Milan eleven, then subsequently fall down and curl into the fetal position out of sheer jealousy."

The teams are in

So as expected Balotelli starts against his former club, as does another striker in Inter's Cassano. Incidentally there has been some very heavy snow in the Milan area but there is no talk of the game not going ahead. Let's just hope that the pitch is in better condition than it was the other night. Here are those teams then:

Good evening all

Quick pop quiz hot shots. Can you identify the owner of this quote? "Allegri? He doesn’t know shit." Was it (A) The Man in the Moon? Was it (B) The Man in the Moon's second cousin who used to live with the Man in the Moon until they fell out over an early-morning dispute about how to assemble the Besta TV storage combination unit from Ikea and who now lives somewhere on the Balls Pond Road? Was it (C) Silvio Berlusconi? Or, finally, was it (D) someone else altogether? Take you time and think abut it now.

It's hard to know exactly where to start with Berlusconi's bashing off his own manager. Let's start with the basics, shall we? He was wrong. Very wrong. Very, very wrong. And Allegri showed him why but a few nights ago when his Milan side trumped and thumped Barcelona and deservedly came away with a 2-0 win; and that's without Mario Balotelli in his side. But Allegri had shown why before that game too. Since his side returned from their winter sojurn, they have won all but two of their Serie A games. they have six consecutive league home victories and currently sit pretty in third place. Not bad for someone who doesn't know shit, eh?

Back to Balotelli for a moment as he faces his old club for the first time since leaving in 2010. The striker is in a tasty run of form since his move from Manchester – his last three league games have brought four goals. Famously, the striker has been a Milan supporter since a youngster and once, while an Inter player, he went so far as to arrive at training rocking a pair of Milan socks. Marco Materazzi took a scissors to them. Inter fans will, of course, let him know of their displeasure for him – as if he didn't know it already – but let's just hope that those idiots with their racist chanting don't spoil the game.

As for Inter, their season has been up and down like it's been fixed with hydraulics. They it was who ended Juventus' million-games without defeat in the Juventus Stadium and that win was the penultimate one in a run of 10 that ensured they were riding high in second place, a few points short of the top spot and 14 ahead of their city rivals. Since then though, they have played 14 in the league and won just 4. That ain't cool. They are also set to be without diggity Diego Milito since a severe-bout of knee-gah ended his season.

What all of this means is that Andrea Stramaccioni's side go into the Derby della Madonnina very much as underdogs. As soon as the team news it with me, it will be with you.